Hands-On: Cleveland Classic Driver

It’s funny how in life, what’s old is new and what’s new is old, and this is evident with the new Cleveland Golf Classic line of drivers. The Cleveland Classic driver takes its cues from the old persimmon drivers of golf’s past, with its color scheme and sole design, that reminded me of the old wood driver from my first set of golf clubs. But, don’t let its old school style fool you, this driver is packed with performance features you’d expect in a titanium driver.

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Look and Feel
What I love about the Cleveland Classic is its pear-shaped profile, that most golfers will find aesthetically pleasing at address. And what’s also really cool is how gold color trapezoid on the center of face further adds to the retro look, but also serves as an alignment aid.

While the Classic feels really light when you pick it up, don’t let that fool you. Cleveland Golf engineers, created a clubhead that features a traditional weighted head at 199g.The mass in the clubhead helps promote power and forgiveness, without slowing down your swing. Other factors that lend to its ultralite feel are what is called RightWeight Fitting.

RightWeight fitting is a combination of multiple factors: unique grip, shaft, and clubhead to achieve a specific performance. That’s why the Cleveland Classic is available in three different models: Classic 270, Classic 290, and Classic Tour. This is great, because not every golfer has different needs. For example, The Classic 270 (model tested) has a total club weight of 270 grams. This helps generate increased club head speed for maximum distance with the same swing effort.

Performance
The Cleveland Classic driver has the largest and deepest face ever produced by Cleveland Golf. This results in giving the average player one of the largest effective hitting areas and hot ball flight. You can crush your drives with the Cleveland Classic and it produces a really nice mid-high trajectory ball flight. What I really liked is how easy it is to work the ball and shape my shots with the Classic driver.

In terms of forgiveness the Cleveland Classic doesn’t disappoint. The large face uses MaxCOR2 technology for added distance and forgiveness on off-center hits. Please keep in mind that while your drive may go off target left or right, your misses will not be as severe. Will your drive go as long on a miss-hit? Of course not. But it won’t be as bad of a miss. I’ll take that any day of the week!

Overall, the Cleveland Classic driver is one of my favorite drivers from Cleveland Golf. It’s retro style, large deep face, and RightWeigt fitting technology make this a driver worth checking out. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by Cleveland Classic.